Beach Strip by John Lawrence Reynolds

back in. So the garden shed remained unlocked. Someone had been in there last night. It might have been a police officer. Or one of the reporters. Or someone could have been hiding in the garden shed when Gabe came out the garden door wrapped in the blanket and carrying the bottle of wine. They could have followed him into the bushes and shot him there.
    I walked to the shed and looked inside. It was, of course, empty except for some dusty garden tools.
    Why would anyone, assuming they had a need to kill Gabe, follow him onto the beach? It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. Gabe was gone, whoever had been in the garden shed had gone, and I needed time in the sun. I needed to heal.
    I sat in one of the garden chairs, my back to the beach. Trafficsoared along the high bridges spanning the canal, and beyond them the steam and smoke of the steel companies rose through a still-clear sky. I heard the warning blast from the lift bridge down the strip, and geese calling to each other as they passed overhead. I smelled the roses growing against the fence. None of the sounds and smells reached me the way they might have a day earlier. I was untouchable. I was distant. I was in free fall, waiting to land on solid ground. I was something else as well, but I didn’t want to think about that at the moment. I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, feeling nothing except a sudden hand on my shoulder.
    I jumped at the touch, spilling my coffee. I screamed as well, and I’m sure I swore before looking around to see Mel Holiday holding his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have said something—”
    “You should have knocked at the damn door,” I said.
    “I did.” Mel lowered his hands. “Then I came around the side and saw you out here—”
    “And decided to scare the hell out of me.”
    “How are you doing?” Mel looked toward the shrubs behind the house. The two cops, their attention attracted by my scream, turned away.
    “My sister is coming to stay with me. She’s arriving tonight.”
    “That’s good.”
    “No, it’s not. You asked me how I was doing. I just told you that my sister is coming to stay with me, probably for a week. That’s how badly things are going. And it looks like somebody was in the tool shed last night.” I pointed at the open door. “One of your guys?”
    “I doubt it.” Mel walked to the shed and looked inside. The shed has two small windows. One faces the garden, the other faces the house. I watched Mel scan the interior, then the shed’s wooden floor. He bent to examine the area beneath the window facing the house, then stepped inside and looked through thewindow and up at the house. “Have you noticed anybody in the shed?” he asked when he returned.
    “No, but I come out here some mornings and find the door opened or unlocked. I told Gabe about it. He didn’t think it was a big deal.”
    Mel looked back at the shed. “It might be.” He looked at me. “You have a secret admirer. A pervert. Somebody’s been standing at that window and masturbating. That’s what it looks like.”
    “Some mornings I lie on the cot over there,” I said, nodding my head toward the corner of the garden. “Sunbathing. People going by on the boardwalk can’t see into the corner because the trees and the shed block the view.”
    “Anybody standing at the window in the shed could watch you,” Mel said.
    “Great.” I felt sick.
    “I’ll have a technician take samples from the stains on the floor. We might get his DNA profile from them.”
    “See if you can get his phone number too. My sister’s on her way.”
    Mel knelt next to the chair. “I know why you’re making jokes. Makes it easier to handle things.”
    “You think it’s a joke? You’ve never met Tina.”
    Mel took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Josie, there are only so many things I can do for you.”
    “One thing you can do for me is tell Walter Freeman that Gabe did not shoot